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In Goodland’s early years, settlers, many of them Rock Island Railroad workers, flooded in. Housing was short in Goodland and the community needed to find a solution. Coffee mill houses were that solution. The area lacked architects, so local carpenters built what they knew, simple four-room, 24-by-24-foot square houses with a chimney rising from…

Explorer-y Places to Find in Sherman County All locations are on private property. Please treat everywhere you go with respect and do not trespass. Site of Edson School Edson School – High school closed in 1973 and the entire school closed in 1979. Classroom building is gone, but the gym (now a farm shop) and…

Goodland’s streets were simply dirt paths until 1921, when the City of Goodland hired Cook & Ransom, an Ottawa, Kan., firm, for the sum of $109,703.60. Cook & Ransom advertised their Native American bricklayer “Speed King” Jim Brown. Brown is the man standing by the car in the picture below. Main Street was to be…

Sherman County Courthouse: Treasure of Art Deco style Sherman County’s courthouse is an Art Deco triumph. Art Deco features (PDF) on the exterior include glazed tiles of metallic gold, red-brown and blue above the entrance near at the courthouse’s top. The north and south ends of the building are set out slightly from the facade in…

The Ennis-Handy House graces Goodland For more than a century, this lovely two-story Queen Anne style home has graced the northwest corner of 13th and Center. Mary (Seaman) Ennis purchased three lots on the site in December 1906 and contracted with Fred Hunt for a house. Hunt married Lyda Seaman (PDF) May 1, 1907,…

When Dr. Arthur Cornelius Gulick died July 4, 1957, his family kept much of his property in the house at 403 Grand. Grace (Gulick) Krause inherited the house from her mother in 1977. Krause died in 1993, leaving it to her daughter, Karen (Krause) Neitzel. Neitzel sold the house to Rod Cooper in 2003,…

For many years, Rod Cooper tried to induce the Kanorado gas station’s owner to sell his 1928 White Eagle Gas Station. Finally, with the building’s roof collapsing and almost nothing holding up the structure from within, the owner’s daughter convinced him to sell. Cooper’s next problem became how to bring the fragile station from Kanorado…

Kidder’s Last Stand In 1867, Sherman County did not exist. No one permanently lived within what would become the county. But history was made here that year, a last stand involving George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Nine years before Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer found the corpses of…

Travelers on the 12 scenic or historic byways in Kansas will enjoy their trips even more this year because they’ll learn more about Kansas because of new or upgraded interpretive signs. Contractor crews installed the signs at 39 locations across the state. Kansas Byways benefit the state’s economy Kansas Byways benefit the state in three areas. Byway routes highlight the beauty, history and heritage of Kansas. They help stimulate the economy through tourism and promote a positive image of the state. The 12 byways include Land and Sky Scenic Byway. The byway runs 88 miles from the Nebraska-Kansas line…

The lone picture of the four vehicles entered in 1909’s Ocean-to-Ocean Endurance Race was taken in Goodland in front of Jos. Kolacny, Tailor, 1011 Main. As promotion for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expedition, a Seattle world’s fair, cars were to race from New York City to Seattle. The race launched Ford Motor Company’s Model T on…